Sounds and Silences
by Queen Lua
Summary: Vivi and the party return to the Black Mage Village to find out why the mages joined Kuja, and Eiko tries to keep Vivi's spirits up.


_Written for Person for the 2013 DOINK! Final Fantasy Exchange. :D_

* * *

There are different kinds of quiet, Eiko's learned these past few weeks. She'd always thought of Madain Sari as being quiet, the quietest little place in the world, out there on the edge of the ocean and the edge of everything, and she'd expected Treno to be exactly the opposite, only when she got there it was and it wasn't. There was noise enough, for sure—people shouting and carriages clattering over cobblestone and glasses clinking in piano-parlors and electric lamps buzzing. But Eiko decided it wasn't loud or quiet—it was just static—constant, unremitting, so different than Madain's sounds and silences. And Treno's static swallowed everything; loud enough that it swallowed even the sound of Mog snoring next to her but still quieter than the heron-shrieks and steady cicada-drones that she would lie awake and listen to on summer nights back home. That quiet was like little stars twinkling in a night sky; Treno's version of quiet was murky and indistinct, like the lamplit, drab grey of its night sky.

So Madain Sari had its own kind of quiet, and Treno did, too, and they were different so she liked them both differently—but this quiet, this quiet right now, sitting aboard the airship and sitting next to Vivi—she doesn't like this quiet at all.

Vivi's always quiet, Eiko knows, but this is different—normally when he's sitting in a corner and staring at the ground, she can snap him out of it by peppering him with questions or challenging him to a game or dragging him into some mischief with her (Vivi lagging behind the whole time, "I-I-I'm not sure this is a good idea…"). But she's already tried challenging him to Tetra Master, and she's tried asking him about where he got his funny hat, all he's responded with is silence. At one point she pesters him enough that he actually speaks—but when he speaks his stammers are like little whisper-breaths, and his voice is hardly there at all. "I d-don't feel like it."

He's been this quiet ever since Cid told him about the mages leaving with Kuja.

"They don't hate you," Eiko blurts.

Vivi blinks and shakes his head, and she wonders if he'd been dozing and she just hadn't noticed because of the way the brim of his hat hangs in front of his eyes. She feels bad if she woke him, but since he's awake now she keeps on: "Your brothers. In the village. They don't hate you. They're just confused, I bet, is all."

"Confused," Vivi echoes faintly.

"Yeah. You'll see when we get to the village. You're _brothers_; there's no way they can hate you."

Vivi doesn't say anything, just stares at the ground again. Eiko almost hisses out of frustration; can't he see that she's right? But then she wonders what _she_ would do, if she found out all the moogles had left Madain Sari and gone along with that horrible Kuja person. She'd scream, probably. Stamp her feet and cry and start running after them as fast as she could. And she'd be so angry but only for as long as it took to get them back; once she had them back she'd hug them hard and tell them to never ever ever ever run away like that again.

Mostly she would hurt. She hurt even thinking about it now; she felt in her pocket for the friendship ribbon Mog had given her, and as she did so she felt a few tears threatening in the back of her eyes, unbidden. She was worried maybe it showed, and she didn't want to look sad in front of Vivi, especially with him being so quiet, so she forced a brave smile, scurried away, and closed her eyes, clutching the ribbon in her hand tightly as she went.

* * *

When Eiko had shown everyone Mog's ribbon before, she had told them it was one of their two friendship ribbons, but that's only half the truth. The truth is that Mog gave her a ribbon first, and Eiko hadn't given Mog one back until later, and when Mog first gave her the ribbon, she hadn't even wanted it.

The exchange happened a week after her grandpa had died. She'd shut herself in her room, had been lying on her bed for days—sometimes sulking, sometimes crying, sometimes just staring at the ceiling. She hadn't even had a warning—Grandpa hadn't been sick, hadn't been ill, she just went to his bedside to wake him and he was cold—she shuddered with her whole body whenever she remembered that. And handling his death wasn't at all like the storybooks had told her. She didn't feel noble righteous anger, didn't have the compulsion to make a solemn vow at his deathbed, didn't feel majestic in her grieving at all. She just knew her head felt foggy and her chest felt hollow and icy—and even with all the moogles there she felt alone and lost and scared, and all she wanted to do was curl up and hide forever so maybe it would _stop_—so that's when she'd shut herself up in her room.

On the third day of Eiko's self-imposed isolation, Mog knocked on her door and asked if she wanted to come out. She'd said "no"—so then Mog walked around outside and flew in through her window. "Kupo?"

"I don't wanna talk," she grumbled and stuffed her face into her pillow.

Mog hovered over to her bed and sat very gently beside her, placing something next to her. "Kupo-kupo?"

She lifted her head from the pillow just enough to see it—a bright little ribbon, tied in a bow, that Mog had gotten for her.

It was so pretty. And with her head, Eiko knew that Mog was trying to be nice, trying to lift her spirits, trying to be friendly—but Eiko wasn't using her head; all her anger and hurt swelled up at once—and she wadded the ribbon up and threw it back at the little moogle. "Go away!" Eiko screamed—she was surprised how dry and raspy and awful her voice sounded—and how scary she sounded—scary enough that Mog squeaked and ran out the door as fast as her little legs could take her.

Eiko had hoped at least maybe the yelling would make her feel better, but it hadn't. So the next day Eiko left her room, and the day after that she took a ribbon of her own, tied it in a bow, and handed it to Mog, telling her they could wear the ribbons together when they were both sophisticated ladies.

It wasn't a friendship ribbon, it was an apology-ribbon, because Eiko had been so awful to Mog before. But Mog fluttered her wings and accepted it and that was the last they ever talked about what had happened. They played that evening, running across the windy steppes of Madain Sari and looking up at the sky to find constellations when night fell—and even though Eiko's chest still felt just as hollow as it did before, somehow it was a little more bearable with Mog's warm hand in hers and with the chilly steppe-winds billowing around them.

* * *

The next morning they're close to the village, but the airship's running low on fuel and Blank wants to get some repairs done on it besides, so they land outside the forest a little ways; they're going to take the chocobos from the on-board stable and ride them into the village.

Eiko's ecstatic, because she's never ridden a real live chocobo before; the closest she'd come was the brief chocobo-carriage ride she'd had in Treno (after haranguing Zidane into giving her the five hundred gil it cost). They weren't any chocobos in Madain Sari, and even if Eiko _had_ found a wild chocobo, there was no way she'd be able to take care of it—the ground in Madain was dry and dusty and lifeless, hardly any green at all, and everyone knew chocobos needed plenty of gysahl greens to keep healthy. The only people Madain Sari could take care of seemed to be moogles and summoners—well, just moogles now, she thought, with a little twinge of guilt.

But Eiko has chosen a chocobo to ride and is twitching with excitement; she's already learned that the chocobo's name is Phillip and he likes it when she scratches the feathers around the base of his neck and she thinks his feathers are the brightest yellow she's ever seen. Vivi seems to perk up, too—he goes up to his chocobo and whispers something to the bird, so softly Eiko can't hear, but it's gentle and warm, and Vivi's eyes crinkle like he's smiling when the chocobo chirrups and rubs his face against Vivi's hat. Eiko smiles, too.

Only once they're on the road into the forest, Vivi goes back to being quiet, the kind of quiet she hates—lagging behind and staring at the ground.

"C'mon, Vi," she says. "Let's race to that tree up there!"

Eiko kicks Phillip and they race ahead, but when she looks over her shoulder, Vivi's still plodding along at a snail's pace. Not even trotting.

Eiko turns Phillip around and tries asking again. "C'mon, Vi, it's no fun if you don't join in—"

Eiko thinks she's helping. She's trying to help; she's been helping Garnet ever since she lost her voice and she wants to help Vivi too. But up ahead, she sees Zidane, and he catches her eye and gives her A Look—a look that says all too clearly that she needs to back off, needs to give Vivi space, that says she's being too pushy.

Eiko feels herself flush, and she ducks her head to try and hide her face behind her hair so no one will see. Because she's trying so hard to help but it's not working, and now she's embarrassed herself in front of _Zidane_, and suddenly, angrily, she thinks,_ I didn't decide to leave Madain Sari for stuff like this_. And she knows it's a terrible and selfish thought, as soon as she thinks it, knows it comes from the same angry place that made her yell at Mog so long ago—but she can't help thinking it, and she's afraid maybe she'll say it aloud—so she kicks her chocobo and rides ahead so she won't have to look anyone in the eye.

* * *

Once they're getting close to the village, the forest becomes quiet—so quiet that not even the birds are chattering, so quiet that not even the oglops are croaking.

Eiko knows this kind of quiet. She slows Phillip down; they're now trotting near the back of the group. Her chest feels hollow and her skin is crawling, and the feelings only get worse as they get closer, until they reach the village's edge and hop off the chocobos and start walking to the town.

"Are you alright?" someone whispers beside her—she turns and realizes it's Zidane. She shakes herself, says, "Yeah, of course," and feels awful that she's making him worry about _her_, when it's _Vivi's_ village that they're going to, when it's _Vivi_ that she's worried about.

But she knows this kind of quiet—and it's not like the quiet of Madain Sari, not like the quiet of Treno, and not a normal forest-quiet either—this is the awful quiet.

She's only heard it once before, and that was right after Grandpa had died. The strange hush over everything, the way even the wild critters seem subdued, the way even the wind seemed erratic and lifeless—quiet like something was _gone_.

It's that same kind of quiet.

And that kind of quiet, it makes Eiko remember what it was like when she and the moogles had had to lay grandpa to rest. She remembers how she'd stood on top of that little rocky cropping by the ocean, with the waves pounding hard around her—she remembers how it had felt to hold grandpa's ashes in her hand, remembers throwing them to the waves and watching as they sunk in the water and washed off with the waves.

She'd stood there a long while, until long after the sun had set, just standing in that awful quiet, and she felt very much like a beautiful young heroine in turmoil—only it didn't feel romantic or dignified or majestic at all; it just _hurt_.

Back then, she had felt as alone as Vivi looks now. He always seems so alone, even when he _isn't_, even when she and Zidane and Garnet and everyone is with him, walking right beside him, right now. And even though Eiko's really sure that the mages haven't abandoned Vivi, because how could they, their own brother—she thinks maybe he doesn't realize that they're all a team, that even if the mages aren't with him, _they_ are with him, like the moogles were there for her—and more friends is always better than less—

"Wait," she says fiercely. She pulls the ribbon out of one pocket and grabs her little pocketknife out of the other. Vivi turns to look at her, tilts his head like he's puzzled. She lines up the knife carefully so that it's perfectly perpendicular to the ribbon, then cut, stuffs one half into her pocket, and holds the other half of the ribbon out to Vivi.

"Take it," she says. "It's our friendship ribbon. Well, I mean, it was me and Mog's, but now it's you and me and Mog's."

For a moment he just stares. Then he reaches out for the ribbon, very slowly, but there's still something tense in the air, and Eiko hopes he won't throw it back.

But finally Vivi wraps the ribbon up very carefully and puts it in his pocket, and the tension passes, and Vivi's holding his head just a little bit higher, now.

"Alright," she says, laughing with relief, "and you better take good care of it!"

"I will," Vivi says. No stammering. And he turns around again, back toward the village, walking solidly ahead, and Eiko keeps right there beside him the whole way.


End file.
